Since the release of OpenAI’s ChatGPT in late 2022, artificial intelligence has become woven into our daily lives—changing the way we work, consume content, and interact with our devices. Nowhere have these changes been more apparent than in schools, where AI usage continues to rise. Around the world, both students and teachers are finding new ways to integrate AI into their workflows.
Joe Barrancotto, a member of the agency team that supports Microsoft’s cloud and AI PR efforts, shared Microsoft’s reports on AI in education with The Ship’s Log. These reports show that use of AI is up 26% among students and 21% among teachers across the United States. 93% of surveyed students reported that they had used AI for school purposes before, and 30% of students even reported that they use it daily, according to Microsoft.
The expanding influence of AI in education is undeniable. But as more students begin to use the technology, concerns about the possibility of misuse are growing, too. Microsoft’s AI in Education Report found that polled teachers’ top concern with AI was plagiarism. Here at CHS, several educators share that same sentiment.
“Some students, I have found, use AI in place of their own thinking. They use it to find answers to questions on reading guides or current event assignments,” history teacher Kayla Patel said. “They’re just regurgitating whatever their AI system said.”
Director of English Language Arts Instruction Kristin Melcher explained how such use of AI is a form of academic dishonesty.
“If you produce work that is not your own and claim it as your own, that effort has always been wrong,” Melcher said. “And so whether it came from copying it out of a textbook, borrowing your friend’s paper during lunch, or copying it from a website, that’s always been dishonest behavior… and it falls in line with similar policies that we would follow for plagiarism.”
Some of the worst effects of AI plagiarism, however, are just beginning to be felt. Educators and AI critics worry that students’ overreliance on AI-generated work could also weaken their critical thinking skills. As this technology evolves and gets smarter, it seems like the AI brain drain has only just begun.
“I think critical thinking is already a skill that was in trouble before AI. And now I worry even more about it. I think if we, as a society, stop critically thinking, then we are in trouble,” Patel said.
Patel isn’t alone in her worries about artificial intelligence having a negative effect on students. According to Microsoft, 88% of people were worried about generative AI—up from 83% last year. However, Barrancotto declined to answer whether the company has conducted any research on the effects of frequent usage of AI chatbots on human brain function.
It isn’t all bad, though. Just as AI use in schools has its pitfalls, it also presents opportunities for new ways to learn. Even though the use of AI chatbots can be considered academic dishonesty, they can also be a tool to help supplement learning and reinforce difficult topics. Artificial intelligence can summarize wordy texts, simplify difficult topics, and create study guides. It can also help point out grammatical errors, give personalized feedback on writing, and create outlines for long assignments.
One of the areas where AI can be most useful the most is research. Finding sources tends to be a time-consuming part of any research assignment. But web searches and document analyses that would have taken hours can be accomplished in seconds with tools like ChatGPT. Patel notes that these chatbots can be thought of as similar to Wikipedia—a good starting point to find resources before taking a deeper dive into their contents.
Some schools have even begun promoting the use of artificial intelligence in class. Among the resources shared by Barrancotto was a Microsoft Education Blog article about how Wichita Public Schools have integrated AI into their lessons. So far, they’ve used Microsoft’s Copilot chatbot to customize lessons on a per-student basis and translate entire lessons for students who don’t speak English. Additionally, special education teams have an AI assistant that translates complex IEP plans into easy-to-understand language for parents.
Melcher also stated that teachers could use AI to help students brainstorm and edit, but added that “we want to make sure that it’s not replacing instruction, but enhancing our instruction… I’m hopeful that with AI, people really try to put some guardrails on it.”
Melcher’s belief is that teachers can responsibly bring artificial intelligence into the classroom, as long as they set clear expectations on how students should be using it.
Companies are also now looking for employees who are well-versed in using AI technology. Microsoft reports that 66% of employers are looking for job applicants who have been trained in AI. Just as the computer classes of the past introduced students to typing properly and writing essays in Microsoft Word, schools can now add training on prompting AI tools and using them responsibly.
Whether or not AI use in schools becomes a net-positive or net-negative depends on how we adapt to it moving forward. As of right now, AI is only in its infancy. We still have many years before its full potential will be realized. In the meantime, it’s up to us to decide how we utilize this ever-changing technology. Will we work with AI, or against it? That’s the question that students, teachers, and administrators are going to have to decide together.
As Melcher puts it, “I think we will definitely look back at AI as something that had a really significant impact on the way in which the world operates. I have faith that we as a human race have always found ways to leverage technology. We figured out what to do with the television. We figured out what to do with the calculator. We figured out how to live with the internet. We figured out how to live with cell phones. And so I think AI will just be another thing we’ve figured out how to live with.”
